Ian Holloway left Liverpool a handwritten love-letter the last time he won at Anfield and the Kop made him teary-eyed.

As Blackpool manager three years ago, Holloway pulled off a shock 2-1 win and paid tribute by scribbling his admiration on the whiteboard in the visitors' dressing room.

Boot-room staff were astonished to find Ollie had used a tactical prop and red and blue marker pens to convey his gushing respect for a football institution.

He wrote:

"The fans were singing You'll Never Walk Alone, my dad's favourite song. He is no longer with us. I was very emotional and singing along with them.

"To then be applauded off the pitch... in what is almost the home of football... made the day so special. In my era there was no better football club in the world. These supporters have seen some of the best football ever."

If Holloway's triumph was a sign of the times when the emperor's clothes didn't fit Roy Hodgson at Anfield, now, as boss of struggling Crystal Palace , Ollie reckons it's worth a 10-0 "hammering" at Anfield just to hear the Kop belt out their anthem.

And after five defeats in six games, Holloway - inspired by a high jump pioneer's appearance on TV adverts - has dared his team to be different like Dick Fosbury, the American who invented the Fosbury flop.

It may be dangerous for him to tempt fate before Saturday's trip with talk of double-figure annihilation and flops on the eve of a fixture Palace famously lost 9-0 in 1989.

But he has also drawn inspiration from the Eagles' amazing 4-3 win over Liverpool in an FA Cup semi-final just six months after that Anfield humiliation as a yardstick for confounding prohibitive odds.

He said: "I can't wait to hear that song, I'll have a tear in my eye. That song is worth just standing there, it's worth a 10-0 hammering.

"For me, Anfield being special goes back to being a kid.

"It was one of the places you always dreamed of playing, and then being 29 years old and feeling it had passed me by until Gerry Francis signed me for QPR.

"The first time we went there, we were absolutely outstanding. I was expecting boos and jeers, but they clapped us off.

"They have an exciting team now and hopefully we can burst their bubble, it's a wonderful opportunity for us to put right what's been going wrong.

"We have to be more attacking - it's who dares wins. People will rubbish us, but nobody gave Palace a chance in that semi-final, did they?

"One of my first games as a coach was in charge of some Under-15 lads. I was only 17 and we lost 17-0, but at the end of the same season we beat them in the cup final.

"We all have our dreams and aspirations, but we've got to believe in ourselves and not be scared to try something different.

"Everybody used to jump forwards until Mr Fosbury came along and thought, 'No, I'm going to do it this way' - and now everybody does it his way."

So what will Holloway scribble on his whiteboard this time?

"I only need three words," he said. "The first one is 'encouragement', the second is 'enthusiasm' and the third is 'enjoyment'. They all start with 'e', although it took a while for me to work that one out - and it took me even longer to be able to spell them.

"In life, if you haven't got the first one, you lose the second one, and you are never going to get the last one.

"The other thing I tell them is an equation: E + R = O (the Event in you life, plus your Response, equals the Outcome).

"If you have a negative event in your life, you have to respond positively. If you only have a negative response, you are only going to get one result - and at the moment, we are not responding well enough when we fall a goal behind."

Blimey, now Holloway does algebra, too.

Be careful, Ollie - it would be a pity if too many defeats led to E + R = P45.